(*) NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Overtime Theatre, San Antonio, October 4 - November 2, 2013

(Overtime Theatre Center, 1203 Camden Street, San Antonio,
 78215 - click for map)


presents

October 4 - November 2, 2013

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Auditions in San Antonio for 'Night of the Living Dead,' Overtime Theatre, July 27 and 28, 2013

Overtime Theater with Film Classics Productions  


Auditions for Night of the Living Dead 

 Saturday, July 27, 12-4pm and Sunday, July 28, 12-3pm. Callbacks Monday, July 29, 6-7pm.

 This October, Film Classics Productions and the Overtime Theatre are teaming up to present an adaptation of George A. Romero's horror masterpiece 'Night of the Living Dead' live on stage, directed by Bryan Ortiz.

Characters Needed:
Tom [aged 18-30's] young man, boyfriend of Judy
Judy [aged 18-30's] young woman, girlfriend of Tom

Newscaster; The General; Radio Newscaster; Dr. Keller; Don Quinn; Scientist; Bill the Reporter; Steve the Cameraman; Tony; Vince; Posse Members and, of course.... ZOMBIES!!!!
Head shots and résumés are welcome. Auditions will consist of cold readings.

1203 Camden, Near the Pearl Brewery Complex, San Antonio, Texas, 78215

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Robert Jerdee at robertj222@hotmail.com or Suzanne Demarkova at suzanne.demarkova@yahoo.com.

Night of the Living Dead, Weird City Theatre Company at Doughety Arts Center, October 13 - 29

by Hannah Bisewski

A note to the nervous: Weird City Theatre’s Night of the Living Dead will have you clenching the edge of your seats, squinting into the darkness to see if a zombie is lumbering in your direction. Director John Carroll’s arrangement of the performance space at the Dougherty Arts Center manipulates spectators to facilitate that sense of terror. A runway extends from the traditional proscenium, separating the audience down the middle and leading to a smaller stage behind them. More than once an actor rose from the dark and terrified someone in the back row with unexpected contact.

George Romero’s 1968 black-and-white zombie film provides the story. Almost all of the dialogue in the Weird City’s staging comes directly from the film, so fans will appreciate familiar lines with expressions idiosyncratic of the era.

From the first moment the atmosphere is that of a bone-chilling, midnight graveyard, swirling in fog, glowing under black lights and alive with heart-stoppingly eerie ambient sounds. An obviously human form sits in a downstage chair, covered by a blood-stained blanket. This ransacked interior will soon become the hideout of the surviving characters.

The action is as fast-paced as the film, and before long zombies are clawing at the Laffy Taffy innards of characters we meet only briefly.

The chills go down a bit after the intermission, as the focus shifts to the stressful entanglements of the refugees and the conflicting messages of ill-fated newscasters. Missed cues and dropped lines lowered the energy of the Saturday night performance, but gradually the tension rose once again. Zombies ambled comically in the background of the living room, staring down the remaining survivors. The nervous, creepy atmosphere of the opening builds to violent, overwhelming horror as zombies overwhelm the final few survivors.

Weird City Theatre Company will keep you transfixed to the very end of this Night of the Living Dead, even if you’re familiar with the classic film. This dedicated cast brings live dramatic irony to celluloid fantasies. You’ll feel tremendous relief to see the last of that hoard of zombies mosey out of the theatre.

EXTRA

Click to read ALT review of WCTC's first production of Night of the Living Dead, November, 2008

Upcoming: Night of the Living Dead, Weird City Theatre Company at Dougherty Arts Center, October 13 - 29

Received directly:

presents

George Romero's

Night of the Living Dead

October 13 - October 29, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.

Dougherty Arts Center 1110 Barton Springs Rd (click for map)

Thursday Nights are “Pay What You Wish” at the door. For all other performances, tickets are $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for seniors and students (with ID), and group rates are available. Tickets can be purchased at our website, www.weirdcitytheatre.com.

*There is a limited number of tickets available for each performance and reservations are highly encouraged.*

Weird City Theatre Company announces the premiere of the audience favorite Night of the Living Dead, newly adapted & directed by WCT Artistic Director, John F. Carroll. George Romero & John Russo's classic zombie film is brought back from the dead in a new adaptation of WCT's 2008 hit [click for ALT review of November 7, 2008]. The cast includes WCT familiar faces Patti Neff-Tiven, Kevin Gouldthorpe, Michael Covey, Sarah Covey, Emily Hampton, LeRoy Beck, Jenni Bauer, Nick Orzech, Robert Berry, Bethany Harbaugh,Chris Romani, Javier Smith, Justin Hampton, and introducing Elisabeth Giminiani.


Weird City Theatre's mission is to encourage the growth of the artist and represent the uniqueness and vitality of Austin through re-envisioned classics and original works. Keeping a child-like sense of play, we focus on the process of the actor and we are playing our part to keep Austin weird! Weird City Theatre is a sponsored project of the Greater Austin Creative Alliance, a nonprofit performing arts service organization.

Night of the Living Dead, Weird City T.C. at Hyde Park Theatre, October 22 - November 7

Why do we enjoy this stuff so much?

A brother and sister arrive at an isolated cemetery to leave a wreath on their father’s grave. He scoffs and complains. She reproaches his irreverence. He recalls the childhood fright he gave her, long ago, in this same place, and intones in sepulchral cadence, “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”

And by gosh, they are. That figure, tottering across the grass and between the headstones, attacks them. Barbara flees. She takes refuge in an isolated house.

And suddenly the world has gone mad. Barbara goes into near catatonic shock. Others who took refuge in the house tell of other horrible, lurching attackers. Radio, television, and civil defense newscasts inform us that the recently dead are coming back to life, and “the mayors of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Miami are calling out the National Guard.”

Uh, oh. We’ve got a bad feeling about this. . . .

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is a 95-minute black and white horror creepy produced in 1968. It cost only $114,000 to produce but made $12 million in the United States and $30 million overseas. It caused a sensation. Pauline Kael of the New York Times called it "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made — and when you leave the theatre you may wish you could forget the whole horrible experience . . . . The film's grainy, banal seriousness works for it — gives it a crude realism".

The film’s distributor failed to include the frames asserting copyright, and Night of the Living Dead lapsed into public domain. The advantage to you is that now you can watch the whole thing on-line from any of several sources, including Google Video. And the concept, script and characters are available to anyone who wants to – well – revive them.

John Carroll (left) and the Weird City Theatre Company have done just that. I haven’t seen the whole film, but judging from the first ten minutes, viewed on YouTube, much of the adaptation uses the movie lines verbatim.

Carroll applied his ingenuity to shaping the script so that except for the initial cemetery scene it fits mostly into the claustrophobic confines of that ramshackle, deserted frame house. He and the other 15 actors in the cast set up this absurd, unexplained situation, make us believe in it, and scare the crap out of us.

Okay, the script is weak. What do you expect? When the zombies are coming after you, who ya gonna call?

How are you going to keep up the interest of the audience for the one-hour duration of this impossible slide into hell? Phillip Taylor as Ben (left), the focused, organized, compassionate leader of the trapped humans, does everything he rationally can. Identify transportation. Nail boards across the windows and door. Fight ‘em off with weapons and fire – the undead don’t have much muscle tone. Argue with the rest of the trapped team, try to exert some leadership. Figure out where to find help.

But since when has rational behavior overcome the inexplicable forces of Evil?

Action in that house plays out in the semi-darkness that mirrors the state of the world. Weird City uses sound to impressive effect, scoring much of the action to spooky, surging music and winding in radio broadcasts as apocalyptic and threatening as those of Orson Welles in 1938. Zombie attacks are hair-raising, colorful and well choreographed. Ohmigosh, look, there’s one that used to be a nurse! There’s many a shot in the night, especially when John Smith as Chief McClellan leads his vigilantes against the bad ghouls (“Just shoot ‘em in the brain, that’s all you need to do. Then pile ‘em up and burn ‘em.”)

You just know it’s going to end badly. But on the way there, there are some fine moments. Sarah Griffin (right) and her portrayal of Barbara’s hysteria and then her shock; snarling face-offs between Ben (Phillips) and Harry Cooper (Kevin Gouldthorpe, right, above); and the appalling conversion of the delicate, injured young Kevin (Nick Orzech). And, particularly, John Smith’s all-business Chief McClellan as he’s interviewed by field news anchor Nicholas Kier. (Click here for Weird City’s video of that exchange, shot in the much less oppressive out-of-doors).

But back to that question: why do we enjoy this stuff so much?

Night of the Living Dead is a 20th century reprise of one of the oldest of Western dramatic art forms – the medieval mystery play.

These are stock characters. Cynical Johnny mocks Barbara as she prays at their father’s grave; he deserves his violent and horrible comeuppance, both in the opening minutes and again, at the very end. Ben the leader thinks that logic and preparation can overcome furies; his demise, in a vividly cinematic moment, belies that belief. Cold-bloodedly efficient Chief McClellan supposes that he has the Answer but finds out otherwise. And media representatives deliver the News and offer counsel about Security, but they cannot provide Salvation.

Sin begets punishment; ignorance brings death; and arrogance brings terrible retribution.

One could quote the central character of “Le Miracle de Théophile,” written by Rutebeuf in France in 1261:

"Filthy I am; I must go to filth beneath.
In filthiness I’ve lived; God must know –
He lives forever. My dying will be slow,
Poisoned by the bite of devils’ teeth.”

The difference, however, is that back in the thirteenth century Théophile could hope. His humble repentance on the boards attracted the attention of the Blessed Virgin, who vividly trampled the Devil underfoot, certainly to the delight of spectators.

We face, still today, the puzzle of Evil and the fears of Death. We try to exorcise them by entertainments and distractions. Halloween celebrations among them.

This production of Night of the Living Dead doesn’t have to carry such a theological load, of course. We can enjoy it for its own production values and for the healthy scare it gives us.

But at the last moment those zombies do turn around and start for us, don’t they?

Barry Pineo's review in the Austin Chronicle, October 30

Extras:

Weird City Theatre Company website -- with link to cast bios and link to audio of the scary radio broadcast script (open the "Tickets" page)

Hannah Kenah's pre-production piece with interview of director/producer John Carrol, Austin Chronicle of October 24

Weird City promo on YouTube for NOTLD

First ten minutes of NOTLD film, 1968

1968 trailer on YouTube (1:37)

3 Flickr sets for NOTLD rehearsals and prep, containing
31 images, 80 photos and 8 videos, and 115 photos and 8 videos

Video: NY Times Critics' Picks: A.O. Scott on 1968 NOTLD, published October 28 (2:31)

extensive article on NOTLD on Wikipedia

NOTLD on Internet Movie Database

full streaming video of NOTLD on Google Video, 95 min.